User`s manual

A–7Bar Codes
Bar Code Characteristics
The printer supports fifteen bar code styles:
• Code 39 (default or user–selectable settings)
• Extended Code 39
• Interleaved 2 of 5
• EAN 8
• EAN 13
• Code 11
• Codebar a/t
• Codebar b/n
• Codebar c/*
• Codebar d/e
• UPC–A
• UPC–E
• Postnet
• Code 128 – USS (regular)
• Code 128 – UCC (serial shipping container code)
All bar code styles differ, though the differences can be subtle or obvious.
The following subsections discuss bar code characteristics that are pertinent
to printing readable bar codes.
Number of Bars per Character
Each bar code style is made up of a specific number of light and dark bars.
Dark bars are the inked, machine–readable lines; light bars are the unprinted
spaces between the dark bars. Several styles of light and dark bar
combinations exist. For example:
• In the Code 39 style, both light and dark bars are encoded to define a
single character.
• In the Interleaved 2 of 5 style, the light bars decode one character while
the dark bars decode another character.
The light bars and dark bars can also be narrow or wide. These width
variations are unique to each bar code style.